Combat Karl O. Hummelincki

Alright, I have made some traps! I will post some pictures when i get home. I found a terra cotta ball (6" diameter) and i also used the base of an oil lamp (never used) that is ceramic. I found them both at target and have used polypropelyene rope to create the webbing/attach points. They turned out much nicer than i had expected.

March 30, 09

Karl has maintened his current level of behavior, and has eaten several medium sized (1 1/2'' across carapace) stone crabs along with 2 shrimp that were apprx 4'' in length. One was slightly over the other slighty under this measurement. One of the crabs had no legs, and no claws. Pretty horrible, as it was just a body in the refugium. My guess is the large stone crab i have living in there currently (2 1/2'' carapace) got into a fight and removed its limbs. I set the body next to Karl and he inspected it then ate it to my suprise. The night before last we had a unusually long play session where he seemed to enjoy climbing the glass and dropping into my hand. He also stopped moving and let me rub his mantle for awhile. He has also created a new lair in another part of the tank but has continued moving shells etc into his first cave.

Mantle measurement...... Am i supposed to measure from the eyes to the back or from behind the eyes to the back? I again recant my statement that it was under 3'' for when stationary it is definetly at this measurement or slightly over. I am no scientist but am trying to make objective observations :smile:

The traps have narrower openings than the commercial clay ones that nancy mentioned. My train of thought is that since I am trying to capture a young hummeilncki this setup might be more appealing to them. I will post the pictures in about 2 hours.
 
Here are the traps, took me about an hour.

trap1.jpg


trap2.jpg


trap3.jpg


trap4.jpg
 
Nice job on the knots, I never could get the hang of tying decent looking ones. If the octos find the pots as attractive as I do, you may have a lot of fun! Good idea on trying two different materials too. You might experiment with putting the openings closer to the substrate and placing a right sized stopper (shell) near by. This may encourage a brooding female though but then you could watch them in the water (and start a journal!) and that would be cool too!
 
Your knots are very impressive, but I'm a little concerned about the jars. The ones I saw in the book I mentioned had much wider mouths. Octopuses won't leave the jars as they are raised, and seem to like the wider mouths just fine. So how would you get the octopus out of the jar, if one crawls in?

Nancy
 
Researching the commercial traps, I found that they are attempting to catch larger octopuses (correct plural usage?). I may be wrong but the most commercially trapped octopus with this method is O. Vulgaris which is significantly larger than the O. Hummelincki I am trying to capture. The vulgaris (again i am new and my research limited so if I am incorrect please be gentle :read:) get around 3' fully grown, which is the size animal these traps have been designed for. O. Hummelincki juvenile males are what I am attempting to catch, and my train of thought was this trap size might be more suitable. I could be very wrong, as it happens often.

Actions that happen in the event of a brooding female:
I will leave said female in the trap and observe. This would include me starting a journal. Again, my goal is to capture young males, but the opportunity to see a female use the trap cannot be overlooked.

Removal..... In the event I capture a male i do not want to use traditional methods of removal i.e. hypersaline solution or urine. I will take the trap in a 5 gal bucket with water and acclimate in the trap. I will then place the trap in my tank and will attempt to coax out with food. I have ample space on one end of my tank to accomplish this. If it turns out to be female, then trap and octo return to river.

The only species of octopus i know of in the area are hummelincki and vulgaris. Large vulgaris are regularly caught down at Ponce Inlet on the jetties, and people have caught hummelincki up and down the river. If I do capture a young Vulgaris i will release it. My tank is large enough to accomodate one, but I really enjoy the interaction and personality of the Hummelincki.

That being said, I put the traps in the water yesterday under the dock. They are in close proximity to the sea wall/river wall which is comprised of large boulders. I currently get my food for Karl from here as there is an abundance of stone and blue crab, along with large hermit crabs. My crab trap is also off the end of this dock. I caught a medium sized decorator crab yesterday and Karl was more than happy to welcome it to the tank :wink:. There are also large snails but Karl has showed zero interest in these.

Journal Entry

Karl ate the large stone crab that has been wreaking havoc in the refugium. I broke off a claw and fed it to the green brittle star. He is getting much more gentle with handfeeding. Karl reached out and slowly wrapped his tentacle around it and pulled it towards him with purpose, but not the excessive force he exhibits. This gentleness has occured off and on over the last 4 or 5 days. I have to get more food for hime today, so i need to catch the river at low tide. This will also be a good time to check the traps as i should be able to see them if the water quality is decent. It rained so that is probably wishful thinking. I thought about putting the terra cotta ball trap into the tank to see if Karl would get in, but i figured this would be a pretty dumb enterprise if he moved into it. This would make it an unsightly addition to the tank and not the river.
 
Good plural! Great forethought on what if's! It would be execllent to have an second in situ journal. Our first is one Haggs has been keeping in the Encounters forum (link provided in case you have missed it).

You may have noted my remarks on how gentle the hummelincki seem to be as a species. Beldar (macropus complex) has started to show a similar gentleness at play time but we are not a full trust (either party) and the encounter gentleness is very much related to our play corner where gentle encounters with OhToo and Octane could be counted on all the time (and was part of my surprise when OhToo would not release and actually bit me when he was ill. He is pardoned for the infraction once it was clear that he did not want to be on the substrate in his condition and I could not communicate that I was trying to place him in a safety net).
 
Good, sounds like you have a plan for the jars! You're so fortunate to leave near a place where you can collect your own octopus and a good variety of food.

So you would find hummelinckis at the mouth of the river?

Nancy
 
I have had an insanely busy last couple of days so I have not been able to post :bonk:

I have not been able to make it to my food collection point at low tide making it impossible to collect Karls typical food choice, the stone crab. Therefore, i had to stop by the bait shop around the corner and get some fiddler crabs which he seems to like but they are about 1/4 of the size crab he usually picks. It kind of looks like hes eating popcorn! I am going to stop by the bait shop again and get some shrimp as the current lunar pattern is not so great for catching low tide the times i have available.

Behaviorly he has been sort of skittish the last several days only wanting to have one "play" session with me. He has been more into tank roaming hanging out in his favorite spot. He has been whiting out in the fear coloration quite often but then immediatley returns to his normal camo coloration. I call it camo as it is a very fatigue pattern. When he interacts with me he goes totally green. His dusktime activity is way up as well. When the lights go off he usually moves around a little more carelessly in the tank, but lately it has been total abandon/hardcore exploration canvassing every rock in the tank. This definetly makes me feel that the fiddler crabs are not satisfying him and he is seeking a different food source. I also am not sure what the "warning arm" is. Is it when they grab you and forcefully pull you towards them? If so, i recieved a warning arm yesterday.

Octo Trap Update:
The traps thus far are unsuccessful. I have yet to install a better base onto the ball trap, but it had not rolled and was in the same spot. The other trap sits fine, and does not move in the tidal currents. The crab trap has been rebaited, and is attractig conch and about a bajillion smaller snails. Some decorator crabs are moving in but not many. Hopefully i get some activity in the octo traps soon, but atmospheric conditions are pretty horrible in the area. I do not know if cephalopods are affected by pressure fluctuations like fish, but if they are it is a very poor time for them.
 
This is to answer Nancy:

You actually find the hummelinckis up and down the river itself, not just at the mouth. I was suprised at this. The position of my traps is approximatley 2 miles from the inlet into the ocean. The salinity where my traps are rarely drops below 1.024. I have spoken to several ppl with ceph experience at my LFS, and they have reported catching them as far north as Ormond Beach (This is really far!!!) My LFS owner also has people try and bring him octos they catch in crab traps which are much farther north than i am.
 
It would be interesting to test the water if you have a spare specific gravity tester you can thow in the car for next time you are "up north".

The "warning arm", as I call it, is quite the opposite of the grab and sample if I can get it to my mouth. It is kind of a sneak approach (or maybe I am not paying attention to the octos when I clean the tank but I never see them coming when it happens) and then a very gentle touch and sometimes shove. The shove is why I call it a "warning arm". There is no intent to play but it is not aggressive. It usually makes me jump since I concentrating on the substrate or algae.

If you can't get crabs, you might get frozen or fresh shrimp (live if your bait store has it). So far all of my larger octos (but not the dwarfs) have eaten the shrimp well so the smaller crabs were a treat and to cut back on their food intake (Roy Caldwell - Berkeley prof who specializes in octos and mantis shrimp) curently has a bimac that has lived for three years in the lab and he is convince that reducing the food supplied is a key to longevity.

Octane would refuse supper about once a week as he got older and we learned not to be uncomfortable with it as he would eat a whole shrimp 5 nights with a fiddler dinner in the middle of the week.

Beldar (macropus complex) seems to be hungry pretty much every night so I try to keep the portions small. If he acts hungry later in the evening (lately, he will play an hour after his supper but if I go back later and he is hungry, he gets grabby. Your recent grabbing coupled with the smaller food quantity may be that Karl is indeed still hungry. Feeding is still very much an art and we don't know much about best nutrition other than staying away from freshwater fish.
 
Karl has continued his current behavior pattern. I have gotten to my food collection site, and have gotten around a dozen good sized crab. He seemed excited about the first one i put into the tank, and wasted no time in welcoming it. His intense exploration behavior continues. He has now restarted excavating his new sleeping spot, and has returned to his old cave to clean up and excavate the sand that has migrated back in. I will post some more pictures of Karl tonight if i have the time.

The octo traps:

Tragedy!!!!! I poured out a baby octo! At least i am 97% certain of this. The traps are imopssible to see in when pulled up as the silt stirs up. So i figured i will just pour the water out and look in...... In the land of good ideas this one hasn't even visited. I watched a baby octo go flying out with the water! :mad: Next time, I will pour it out into a net. Trial and error. Unfortunatley it stings when it's error.
 
Exciting none the less. Thowing the baby out with the bath water is not so tragic, at least you know you are having visitors :wink: You might want to use a bucket with water under the net so that there is a cushion of water when you pour. When I transferred OhToo I opted not to use a net just because they can squeeze through parts. I do use a very very fine one with tiny babies but that would not work for what you are doing.

Could you tell what kind or was it too fast?
 
It was way too fast when it came out. I just caught the outline of it as it went out. I am checking the traps at night now when Karl is sleeping. I figure since he came out of the river that he might have approximately the same activity schedule. My tank lighting schedule has probably completely destroyed this but I figure it is worth a shot.

Journal Entry

Karl has begun an excavation project that would appear to based upon a Roman design :smile:. He has been digging off and on now for the last several days, and has no completely devoted this new found vigor to his new home site. The old cave has been abandoned, and he now is moving loose shells and such into the new house. I was reading in one of dwhately's threads that Octane or OhToo (I can't remember which) got to a point that they were selective about where they would take food. Karl is becoming selective like this, as he likes me to place it on a dead coral head i have in the tank. His contruction work has mostly taken place at night, and more or less comes and goes with it's intensity. Sometimes it looks like a sandstorm on that side of the tank, sometimes he is just moving shells or "chilling" on the glass watching me watch him...... I ponder philosophical questions of metaphysics during these times. Not really, but i have wondered about the ethics based upon his captivity and his cognitive ability to understand he is captive.
 

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